It is well known that the passage of magnetic tapes against components such as recording and play-back heads and driving members creates deposits of particles of iron oxide, and that the accumulation of these deposits gives rise to noise and/or to distortion of the recorded or reproduced signal. Also such deposits impair the passage of the tape at the constant speed required for the recording or reproduction of signals of good quality because of slipping of the driving members.
To eliminate these deposits and to clean such components of the recording and/or play-back apparatus, various means have been proposed including cleaning cassettes. One type of cleaning cassette incorporates a fixed tank of cleaning liquid which is applied to a tape then used to apply the cleaning liquid on the tape to the components to be cleaned. However, the use of such cassettes requires attention from the user, and the cleaning liquid while applied continuously to the tape, may not be uniformly distributed thereon which reduces cleaning effectiveness.
To ensure that effective cleaning is achieved, various stages listed below must be scrupulously observed:
rewinding of a tape before the cassette is inserted, to obtain a maximum cleaning period;
inserting the cassette and switching the apparatus to drive the cleaning tape at the normal tape speed to ensure cleaning;
stopping the drive of the tape at the end of the tap to avoid abnormal pulling forces.
If, for example, the cleaning tape is not rewound completely before starting the cleaning operation, or the operation is switched to fast speed with the cleaning cassette in place, there is a substantial risk of damaging either the cleaning tape or components of the apparatus. Furthermore, within one and the same family of apparatus it is common to find models having different modes of operation, which the user may be unfamiliar with; it will be appreciated that there are many sources of handling errors.